Hoangmai (Mai) Pham — a Vietnamese American refugee, physician, artist, mother, and debut memoirist — announces the publication of her first memoir, “Bridge from Saigon: A Viet-American Memoir of Family and Mind” (McFarland Books; publication date: March 3, 2026). The book was recently shortlisted for Black Spring Press’ International Beverly Prize for Literature.
At six, Mai fled with her family from Saigon on a cargo plane at the end of the war to the United States. She went on to earn degrees from Harvard and Johns Hopkins.
“I thought that holding my published book would be the end of a journey started in 2010, but I'm learning it's the start of one. It has triggered so many discussions with friends who read the book and so much of my own internal dialogue about how this story intersects with our current reality -- raising questions like "When does immigration start or end?" or "When is the right time to leave a country?” says Pham about the experience of writing her memoir and reactions she is receiving.
As a young Vietnamese refugee, Hoangmai Pham suddenly lost her sense of safety and belonging when her family fled Saigon at the end of the war. But her later success in navigating life in America as a physician and health policy leader at the top of her profession paradoxically triggered a psychological unraveling during middle age. This unusual memoir depicts her struggle in confronting her hidden multiple personalities to heal, luring the reader into parallel slipstreams of discovery — one of family secrets and epic history before and during the Vietnam War, the other of traumas masked behind a child’s vivid imagination.
Stories of ghostly ancestors, a fraught return to Vietnam as an adult, and her kaleidoscopic inner characters unfurl in a voice that is at once dreamlike and brutally incisive. Her final triumph crystallizes the immense price that immigrants pay for a chance at a better life, and their resilience in achieving every sense of integration.
Jean Kwok, novelist and New York Times bestselling author of “The Leftover Woman,” has said that Hoangmai Pham’s “'Bridge from Saigon: A Viet-American Memoir of Family and Mind' weaves her harrowing escape from war-torn Vietnam with the intimate unraveling of hidden traumas, revealing the profound psychological toll of immigration through a physician’s unflinching gaze."
Harvey Weiner, a reviewer for Vietnam Veterans of America: Books in Review, wrote of Pham: “Joanne Woodward received an Oscar for her portrayal of Eve, and Sally Field received an Emmy for her portrayal of Sybil. Pham deserves some kind of award for what she has gone through and for what she has accomplished. She is one tough cookie.”
Pham will be in conversation with Marika Ravitz about “Bridge from Saigon” on Takoma Radio on Tuesday, March 3, at 10 a.m. EST on 94.3 FM in the Washington, D.C./Maryland area.
She will also be reading and signing at People's Book in Takoma Park, Maryland, on Sunday, March 22, at 3 p.m.
About Hoangmai Pham
Hoangmai Pham is a physician, national health policy leader, visual artist, and author. For more information, visit hoangmaipham.me or watch on YouTube.
Media Contact
Hoangmai Pham
hoangmaiphamauthor@gmail.com
Susannah Greenberg
Principal, Susannah Greenberg Public Relations
publicity@bookbuzz.com
